


How to Have an Office Romance: A Comprehensive Guide

by laughtershock



Category: James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Cat-and-Mouse, Christmas Jumpers, M/M, Oral Sex, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 16:04:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughtershock/pseuds/laughtershock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q's mother sends him a horribly gaudy Christmas jumper, and it all seems to go downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Have an Office Romance: A Comprehensive Guide

Every year, Q’s mother sends him a Christmas jumper.

It’s been a tradition for six years, and he's kept all six of them, and each one falls into the category of "The Most Horrifying, God-Awful, Tacky Pieces of Clothing Q Has Ever Seen in His Life"—happy snowmen and happy Christmas trees and happy fucking St. Nicholases.  But he keeps them, and annually, he sends his mother a letter in which he lies through his teeth about how thankful he is, and about how useful the jumper has been on cold days.

He occasionally wonders if the letters have anything to do with why she continues to send him the horrible things, and them firmly pushes the thought from his mind because, frankly, that's just depressing.

So, when Q receives a package on the fourth of December, he's not particularly keen on opening it right away.  When he does, four hours later, curled up on his couch with a mug of tea, he groans.  Then he pulls out the jumper entirely from the box and tissue paper, and groans again, standing up to pull the wretched thing on over his head.  Hair mussed, he wanders to the mirror in his bedroom to stare at his reflection with grudging, self-abating humour.

The thing is, his mother is an excellent knitter—each piece of clothing has fit him perfectly, never too long in the arms, never too tight—but the _designs_ with which she chooses to adorn the jumpers are very consistently horrifying.  This year, Q looks down at his chest in the mirror at the enormous, smiling reindeer that covers almost the entirety of the front of the garment.  The reindeer has large eyes, sprawling antlers, and a red nose in the form of a cotton puff that settles just over his navel and is raised out from the rest of the fabric surrounding it.

Later, Q writes, " _You've really outdone yourself this year_ ," and it isn’t even a lie.

It's only when his mother calls two weeks later to check in (read: nag Q as thoroughly as she is able from her home in New Forest) that he's finally guilt-tripped into wearing the ridiculous pullover out of his flat.  She tells him she'd seen the weather report and that Q had better layer up this week, because "I know how prone you are to catching cold in these months, dear," and that the jumpers are made of very warm material, really, and—

Well, Q finds himself promising his mother that, yes, he'll absolutely wear the jumper tomorrow, and no, he's not sure whether he’ll be able to make it home for Christmas, and yes, they absolutely are working him too hard, and _no_ , god no, she doesn’t need to call his boss.

And then he goes to MI6 the next morning with the bloody thing hidden under his long coat, because he isn't going to outright refuse to fulfill a promise he made to his mother.  He's grudgingly thankful for the extra warmth despite himself, though makes plans to strip off his coat and the jumper in quick succession once he's settled in Q branch.

Q makes these plans, and then they fall through in a spectacularly mortifying way.

He makes it to MI6 early enough so that Q branch is more or less empty, save a couple of over-achieving interns who are so wrapped up in their work that they don't spare him so much as a passing glance as he walks by on the way to his desk. The building is relatively warm, so it doesn't take him long before he's shrugging out of his coat and hanging it on the back of his chair, hands moving to the hem of the reindeer catastrophe a moment later.

That's about when Bond walks in, because of course he fucking does. Statistics and probability shrivel up and die in the face of James Bond, who surely takes pride in defying all odds. Bond takes a momentary, sweeping glance at Q, raises an eyebrow, and says absolutely nothing, though the nearly imperceptible smirk on his face is enough to be infuriating.  Q briefly feels compelled to defend himself, and instead demands, shortly, "Can I help you?"

Bond looks like it's actually taking him physical effort not to make some comment or another.  "M mentioned you had something for me."

Q realises, belatedly, that he's got a mission in France today. Occasionally, he forgets Bond doesn't exist solely to make his life more difficult and does, in fact, come around Q branch for reasons other than pestering him. He rummages through one of his desk drawers and unearths a small case, resigning himself to the fact that there's no way to take off the jumper now without amusing Bond further. "It's a camera. For when I need a closer view of whatever situation you've got yourself into. You'll wear it like a contact lens," he explains, flicking open the case and displaying the small, glass lens inside. "Nearly unnoticeable when it's in, and while you'll likely have a brief period of discomfort while you grow accustomed to wearing it, it oughtn't be too vexatious."

"Have much experience with contacts, do you?" Bond gestures at Q's glasses and takes the case from him, tucking it away into his jacket.

"I tried transitioning to them several years ago. Bit too much of a hassle." Namely that he'd nearly poked his eyes out each time he’d tried to put them in and remove them, and had subsequently spent half the time with red, watery eyes.

"I like your glasses. They make you look less," and Bond pauses, like he's searching for the right word. "Threatening."

That would imply he looks at all threatening to begin with, which even Q can admit is laughable. "Less threatening," he echoes dubiously, and Bond shrugs, eyes him like he knows something Q doesn't.

Then, on what appears to be an entirely impulsive decision, he reaches out and tweaks the red reindeer nose on Q's pullover.

"My flight leaves in an hour," he says, in lieu of an actual farewell, and turns on his heel, leaving Q staring after him before pulling the jumper off over his head with perhaps more vigor than strictly necessary.

\---

The mission goes smoothly enough, with Q watching Bond run around France as a small, red blip on his screen. He finishes off a mug of tea as Bond seduces a pretty, blonde thing with large eyes and an obnoxious, high-pitched giggle.

Bond forgets (or at least Q assumes he forgets) to turn off his earpiece when he climbs in bed with the woman, whose high-pitched giggles quickly turn into somehow even higher-pitched moans. Dispassionately, Q cuts the connection, silencing the sounds of sheets shifting and wordless sighs. It's a little annoying, seeing as though Bond ought to be doing a proper check-in by now because he's, you know, on a bloody _mission_. Q takes what information he has about the woman and does a cursory background check.

And then he spends a few minutes ruining her credit score.

It's a bit childish, but he gets such an inexplicable, vindictive pleasure out of it that he does the same thing with the next woman Bond sleeps with during a mission. And the next. He branches out a bit throughout the month, annihilating credit scores and careers and bank accounts.

Eventually, it stops being amusing when Q starts to realise just how many women Bond sleeps with—and it's ridiculous, honestly, that he even _cares_.

Bond figures it out eventually, which is to be expected, seeing as though he hasn't been trying very hard to hide it.  So when Bond shows up at his desk one evening and says, "I'm earning something of a reputation as toxic to women's vocations," Q just gives a sort of noncommittal hum in response and keeps typing, not bothering to look up.

"Are you destroying the lives of every woman I sleep with?" Bond asks, looking less affronted than Q had been anticipating—he seems _intrigued_ , amazingly, like he's seeing Q for the first time.

Denying it would be foolish. He considers doing so anyway.

Later, he will wonder what possesses him to say, very matter-of-fact, "I could destroy yours, too, if I wanted. I could destroy your entire life with a few keystrokes. I could ruin you so perfectly that no one would second-guess it." It's not a bluff, or a threat, even, so much as a simple truth, whether or not Q would actually act on it. He glances up. "How does that make you feel?"

Bond studies him for a moment, quiet. Then he smiles. "Safe," he says, and Q can't decide whether to be annoyed or fascinated.

He is, for the record, aware of how often Bond flirts with him—he'd have to be incredibly obtuse not to—but then, Bond flirts with everyone. And, alright, maybe Q is a bit attracted. A bit charmed. Hell, he'll admit it: He's jerked off to thoughts of Bond before. But he'll be damned if he'd ever say as much, because doing so would be stupid, and unprofessional, and... _stupid_. Especially since Bond spends considerably more than half the time being an enormous pain in the arse.

Bond is more trouble than he's worth most days, but then, Q has the same attitude about the population in general. There's a reason he works with computers and not in, say, Human Resources.

The wonderful, perfect thing about computers is that they respond to commands and keystrokes in fundamentally predictable ways. Technology more or less follows a set of essentially immutable rules, so that even when faced with a seemingly impossible problem, Q has faith in his ability to solve it—whether through painstaking problem-solving or simply opening up the system to see what the issue is.

People aren't predictable. People can't be pried open and examined to better understand why they do what they do, or say what they say. Often, Q wants to draw Bond open anyway, unobstructed and candid, wants to understand _why_ and wants to know if it even matters and—

Mostly, he just wants to stop acting like a paranoid, obsessive freak and focus on his bloody job without Bond becoming an all-consuming distraction.

But Bond says _safe_ and Q thinks he just might be speaking honestly.

\---

Still, because Bond is possibly the most infuriating human being on the planet, he goes out two nights later and has a ménage à fucking quatre with two redheads and a brunette. Q knows this because, unsurprisingly, it's during a mission and he is therefore listening to it because, also unsurprisingly, Bond has 'forgotten' not only to turn off his earpiece but also to remove the camera/contact lens. It's as if he is doing it defiantly, deliberately testing Q's patience—or at least, that's how it seems.

It takes about half a minute to gain access to the hotel room's fire sprinkler system, and five seconds more to activate it.  Immature, perhaps, but the subsequent shrieks and curses are _glorious_.

"You're a bit scary sometimes," Eve comments from behind him, but when he turns around to defend himself, she's grinning. "Oh, he absolutely deserves it.  Ought to be resting up for the reconnoiter tomorrow morning anyway. That doesn't change the fact that you have the potential to be incredibly frightening. I can't help but wonder what sort of destruction you'd cause out in the field."

Q snorts. "The only thing I'd manage to do out in the field is get shot."

\---

He gets shot.

A non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse bomb is in the rear compartment of one of the trains on Central line. Q knows this because he's staring at it. The concept of the weapon itself isn't new, but he's never seen one like this before, and he's tense, kneeling in front of it, brow furrowed deeply in concentration as he tries to disregard the four dead bodies that litter the compartment floor around him.

Unsurprisingly, it's the live one standing over him that's proving to be the most difficult to ignore.

"How long, exactly, do you plan on gaping at the thing?" Bond demands tersely. Q spares him a beat's glance, takes in his body language--all tension and adrenaline, and he hates him at the moment, regardless of the fact it isn't particularly fair of him to do so. The pulse bomb isn't something Bond can deal with by receiving instructions from MI6, with or without the camera/contact lens (which has mostly just proved to be more trouble than it was worth; Q's considering smashing the damn thing with a hammer), and he’d requested backup “who actually knows what they’re bloody doing,” so Q gets to be right in the middle of the action. Bully for him. Still, it takes a surprising amount of effort to resist the urge to snap at Bond. He has, what, about a minute and a half until the train reaches its next stop, and who knows what kind of hell is going to break loose then.

"Give me a moment," he says with considerably more calm than he feels, grits his teeth, and focuses his attention back on the bomb and not on the bodies or the way his palms are sweating. Information shuffles around in his mind as he studies the bomb.

It's powered by an explosively-pumped flux compression generator, with some sort of explosive (no idea what, can't exactly crack the bloody thing open to check) to be used to compress the magnetic flux, and the timer is flashing in his face, counting down the seconds until the pulse goes off and neutralises a vast majority of every important electronically-powered device in a hundred kilometer area, with MI6 well within that range—

"Q," Bond says, and he realises he's been speaking aloud.

"Yes, yes, one moment—"

"You don't have the luxury of panic right now," Bond presses, clearly trying to be understanding but unable to mask the irritation in his tone or the way his body language is wound tight as a coil. Still, the irritation is just enough to shut down Q’s panic, to finally snap him into action.

He's just managed to disengage the timer before the fuse mechanism is able to ignite the explosives when the train begins to slow rapidly.

Above him, Bond swears, the doors slide open, and then it's bloody chaos. Q has about two seconds to think, amid the gunfire, that field work is entirely overrated, before Bond's hand is gripping his shoulder painfully tight and he's shoved behind a row of seats against the wall of the compartment. There are bullets ricocheting off nearly every surface, so he doesn't get shot, doesn't even get shot _at_ , but suddenly pain is blossoming in his side, burning sharp and hot and impossible to ignore.

Never let it be said that Bond isn't a capable agent, though, because the gunshots stop before the doors even have time to slide shut. Then Bond's hovering over him again, and the very fact that he managed to get off without a bloody scratch is so utterly infuriating that Q would pull his own hair out if he weren't so busy clutching at his side and struggling to stand up without passing out like a fucking neophyte.

Dimly, he hears Bond saying—something, something Q can't make out because he might as well be deaf, his ears are ringing so badly from the cacophony of gunshots, and fuck Bond for not getting shot.

He says as much, and catches a hint of a smile, tight and desperate and almost entirely lost in the concerned expression on Bond's face, like he thinks—

"Stop looking at me like I'm going to die," Q snarls, though the effect is somewhat lost with the way his voice shakes. He breathes in, and the overall pain is so much worse than he'd expected, than what he'd been told during training. It hurts, and it hurts, and it hurts, and his mind is trying to blank all of it out, and the floor of the compartment is slick and red. "There's blood," he says helpfully, distantly, blinking when the tiled floor suddenly moves away from him.

"There's blood," Bond agrees, voice clipped, as he grips Q tightly by the arms and hoists him up. 

His vision is blurring at the edges, and the pain is starting to feel like more of an inconvenience than something to be very alarmed about. "I think I'm going to pass out," he warns quietly, because fucking hell, he definitely feels it coming. Bond is speaking again, louder now, but Q can't really make it out and the oncoming blackness is such a stark relief from the pain that he embraces it fully.

\---

He wakes up with his side bandaged, stupid on pain meds, feeling foolish and mortified and furious with himself.

The beds on the Medical floor in MI6 are stiff and uncomfortable, and when M shows up, Q wants to pull the thin, scratchy blankets up over his head and never show his face again.

M says, professionally, that the bomb has been secured, and that Q has been assigned two days in Medical and two additional days of bed rest at home. He's told he can worry about paperwork later. Apparently, Eve visited while he was still out. They're all very relieved he's pulled through. He's expected to heal up just fine.

M says nothing of Bond and Q doesn't ask, just nods and smiles and then hauls himself out of bed less than an hour later. He sticks the landing like a fucking Olympic champion, nearly brains himself on the small bedside table when he stumbles a second later, and eventually gets his footing. The bandages are itchy and he can feel what he assumes are stitches pulling at his skin when he tests the limitations of his movements. His clothes, thankfully cleaned free of blood, are hanging off the back of a chair near the bed—where Eve was sitting earlier, he guesses—and he spends a while carefully dressing before making his way out of the wing. His phone ought to be at his desk, and that's really all he needs before he can quietly retreat to his flat and be humiliated in private.

He doesn't even get to the elevator before Bond appears out of nowhere like his goddamn Spidey-senses were tingling. Q freezes and scowls when Bond, apparently entertained, looks him over and raises an eyebrow. His expression is still tight through it all, still concerned in a way he obviously doesn't plan to admit. Seeing as though Bond has never, in the time Q has known him, spent more than a few hours in Medical (despite extensive injuries), this is laughable.

"If you're going to tell me to get back into bed," Q says, without giving him the opportunity to speak, "I will chalk you up as the most hypocritical human being on the entire _planet_ —"

"I was going to offer you a ride to your flat," Bond interrupts smoothly, pulling Q's phone from his pocket and holding it out. He sounds amused, and Q can't decide whether to be irritated or grateful.

Granted, a ride does sound better than taking the tube.

"Yes, alright," he demurs.

They don't speak much on the way to Q's flat, don't mention the mission at all, and the silence stretches thin between them. Q refuses assistance up the stairs (Bond ignores that completely and helps him anyway), and once they're inside he gives Bond a stiff 'thank you' before gesturing at the door in an admittedly rude sort of dismissal before making a beeline for the shower.

The hot water pounding away at his back and shoulders is heavenly. Q stays in for over twenty minutes, leaning against the tiled wall, not being as careful as perhaps he should with his side wound but being hard-pressed to care much about it. It takes another ten minutes to rebandage his side once he's out of the shower and mostly dry, and he emerges from the bathroom with a towel around his waist, hair damp and sticking out in all directions—

And Bond is in his kitchen.

"Uh," Q says, staring. "What are you doing?"

"Making curry," Bond responds, not turning around. Q watches him lean over a pan on the stove, shoulder blades shifting under his shirt as he stirs and reaches for some ingredient or another from the rather impressive layout covering the counter— _Q's_ counter, which begs the question:

" _What?_ "

"Pathia," Bond says succinctly, as though that clears everything up.

Q is fairly sure he'd told Bond to leave, or at least strongly implied it. He's frozen in the hallway, saying absolutely nothing as he stares at James Bond making curry in his kitchen, when Bond finally turns around and does that once-over-eyebrow-raise-smirk thing that Q is, frankly, getting tired of. That's about the moment he realises he's standing in the middle of the hallway in only a towel.

He doesn't swear, but it's a damn close thing—instead, he frowns, turns on his heel, and stalks to his bedroom, pulling the door tightly closed behind him.

For some reason, he's expecting Bond to have left by the time he comes back out, which is why Q finds himself staring again, now in sweatpants and a large cotton shirt, as Bond dishes curry into two bowls and sets both down on the kitchen table. He wonders whether Bond somehow knew curry was one of his favourite dishes or if this is just a lucky (unlucky?) coincidence. It might be possible that Bond is coddling him. Q isn't sure how he feels about that.

It's a little unsettling.

"Sit," Bond suggests, gesturing. It’s casual, all of it, but his expression still holds an almost undetectable concern, his movements too careful. Q finds himself inexplicably annoyed by it.

He sits. He swallows down the urge to ask why Bond appears to be coddling him, frowns at his bowl of curry for a long moment, then picks up the spoon and takes a bite, not expecting much.

Well.

The curry is, perhaps unsurprisingly, amazing. It takes some effort not to make ridiculous little orgasmic noises as he chews. He steals a suspicious glance at Bond. He doesn't know what Bond did to it, but would happily gorge himself on the entire helping and then demand more. 

Bond looks at him expectantly.

"It's alright," Q says, offhand.

Bond lets out a huff of laughter that probably means he doesn't believe a word of it, and just for that, Q steals half the curry from his bowl.

\---

Then Bond disappears. It isn’t, strictly speaking, the first time it’s happened, but Q finds himself annoyed all the same. He has a feeling this has something to do with the mission, with getting shot, and wonders if Bond blames himself.

Except, that's really rather obvious. Of course Bond blames himself. That’s just the way he is.

Q waits three entire days to see if Bond will come out of his strop and return to work of his own volition (he doesn’t, to the surprise of exactly zero people at MI6) before he goes about finding out where Bond’s gone off to this time. The GPS on his phone has been disabled, so it takes longer than three minutes to locate him, but not by much. He’s in a hotel Singapore, of all places, and the fact that it takes so little time to figure that out means he isn’t trying very hard to hide, or else knows better than to bother hiding from Q at all. There’s probably something important about that, but Q’s too busy phoning his hotel room to dwell on it much.

“What do you want.” Bond’s tone is more than slightly irate; Q wonders if he had anticipated the call or has just been spending the past three days behaving like an arse to every person he encounters. Then again, it’s three in the morning in Singapore, so Q has likely just woken him up. He gets a certain amount of vindictive pleasure in that.

“I was just curious as to whether or not you'd finished sulking yet and were planning to come back to work,” Q replies, pleasantly enough. There’s a pause, during which he assumes Bond is either realising who's on the other line or is actually contemplating the question.

“No,” he eventually replies, with such finality that Q thinks he’s about to hang up, so he blurts:

“Does this have anything to do with me getting shot?”

The pause is longer this time. Sheets shift about in the background, and when Bond speaks again, it’s muffled, like he’s muttering into a pillow. Impatient, Q strains to hear, catches the words ‘responsibility’ and ‘piss off’ and ‘field work’ before he rolls his eyes and waits for the muttering to stop. Maybe calling so early hadn’t been the best idea.

“I’ve noticed you have an excess of responsibility on your shoulders,” Q says, and then, carefully, “but I think you put a great deal of it there yourself. If you feel some amount of guilt, it’s really unwarranted.” It isn’t as though Bond gets moody every time a consort is injured in the field—and Q hadn’t been out of commission more than a couple of days. The sudden flouncing off is inexplicable and childish, really. He feels like he’s on the brink of understanding something when Bond clears his throat.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the _riveting_ attempt at psychoanalysis, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to sleep,” Bond says, tone seeping with 'I've had enough of this bullshit, thank you.'

“You ought to come back to work—”

“ _Make_ me,” he grouses, and Q wants to shake him, he really does, because the sheer number of headaches this man has caused him is rapidly reaching an astronomical amount. "Actually, yes," Bond continues, suddenly sounding very pleased with himself, which is enough to immediately set off every single one of Q’s alarm bells. "I have a proposition for you."

Oh, because that's comforting. "Is that right?"

"If you come get me yourself, I'll return to work." His tone just _exudes_ smugness, because of course going to Singapore would require flying, and Q would sooner disable a hundred electromagnetic bombs than willingly get on a plane. If he stays away another week, M will surely contact Bond himself. It isn't strictly _necessary_ to go chasing after him.

But Bond's cocky attitude is igniting an unprecedented stubbornness, and Q's never been one to back down from a challenge. To hell with it.

"Fine."

\---

M says he doesn't care where Q travels as long as he's available to consult with via mobile. He also says, in no uncertain terms, that it's going to be a waste of time, but Q is confident enough in his ability to track Bond down again if he decides to leave Singapore.

Which is exactly what Bond does, Q finds out, head still a bit fuzzy from the sheer amount of alprazolam he'd taken before getting on his flight to make it at least slightly bearable. He gets a room at the hotel Bond had been staying in anyway, sleeps off the  medication, and then finds out Bond's fucked off to Dumai sometime during the last ten hours.

And then— Then it gets ridiculous, really.

He follows Bond from Singapore to Dumai to Mombasa to Dhaka to Budapest, where he finally, _finally_ thinks he's actually got the bastard pinned down, only for the hotel staff to tell him that Bond had checked out two hours ago, and Q wants to curl up and cry. In Oslo, Bond actually leaves behind a fucking _note_ for him (something utterly, maddeningly mocking about needing to be a bit faster; Q burns the bloody thing before he even finishes skimming it over), which means he's actually _enjoying_ himself.

The numerous plane rides—and pharmaceutical cocktails—have made him hopelessly frazzled to the point of being moments from violently murdering the next poor sod who happens to wish him a good afternoon. He forces himself to relax and think rationally; it does, after all, make more sense to simply wait and violently murder _Bond_ , who is more or less the cause of his plight.

The realisation, when it comes, hits him like a proverbial ton of bricks: Bond is _teasing_ him. Plainly, unabashedly teasing him. Eve confirms it, when he calls her about a week into this stupid cat-and-mouse chase (Q isn't entirely sure he's actually the cat in this analogy, despite being the one doing the chasing).

"You've provoked him into this game—"

" _I've_ provoked _him_ —?"

"—and it does sound like he's being a tease at this point," Eve continues patiently. "I imagine he's having fun with it." It sounds like she's amused. Q holds his mobile to his ear with his shoulder and glowers down at the take-away dish of grilled chicken and rice he's eating on his hotel bed in Oslo---though, 'eating' might be a generous description, seeing as though he's spent more time stabbing irritably at his dinner than actually eating it. He finally takes a bite, only to promptly choke on it when Eve adds, "In my opinion, you two ought to just shag and get it over with."

It takes a moment to respond. "Have I mentioned how much I admire your ability to be professional and discreet?"

"Don't tell me you haven't noticed the sexual tension between the two of you. It's thick enough to bottle and sell. I'm surprised Bond hasn't just gone for it yet."

Q snorts. "Pull the other one, it's got bells on."

"I'm being serious," Eve says, and the weird part is that she honestly sounds like she is.

"Sexual tension clings to Bond like a cologne. It doesn't have anything to do with me." He pokes half-heartedly at his chicken. "If I don't get him at the next stop, I'm coming home. I think I'm in a chronic state of acrimony from all the flights."

She laughs. "You know, I bet he'd already be back by now if you weren't trying so hard to play bounty hunter," she says, which— Alright, _maybe_ she has something there, but Q hangs up on her anyway on principle.

\---

The next stop is Barcelona, experiencing a surprising cold snap and forcing Q into a long, thick coat to combat it. The turbulence on the flight had been enough to jerk him from his Xanax-induced stupor, and he's been on edge for the better part of three hours as a result. According to the hotel booking system, Bond hasn't checked out yet, but there's no answer when Q knocks on the door. He thinks maybe Bond has gone sight-seeing or went to brood over a glass of scotch or whatever it is he does when he's sulking and alone, so he fools the hotel door key scanner and lets himself in.

The room is dimly lit by the setting sun streaming in through the curtains at the far end of the room, too dark to really make anything out, and it's just as he turns to fumble for a light switch that he's blindsided from the right, an elbow to his chest and a hard shove of a shoulder sending him reeling into the wall.

His mind travels in leaps and bounds to absurd conclusions as he pushes back off the wall (someone obviously broke into the hotel room before him and took out Bond and is now going to do the same to him, possibly a member of the terrorist cell from the bomb situation earlier that month, or given Bond's tendency to get into an unreasonable amount of trouble, maybe it's a new threat entirely), and then the bit of training he's had kicks in. His mind switches tracks from sharp panic to survival, and there's a brief scuffle with the person Q can't quite make out in the dark room until—

Of course it's fucking _Bond_ , whose teeth flash amongst the shadows thrown about the room by their bodies in motion, and of course he's fucking _enjoying himself_. Q holds his own for about fifteen seconds and then Bond winds him with a blunt jab in the stomach, annoyingly mindful of his mostly-healed gunshot wound, pushes him up against the wall, and pins him there with the proximity of his body and the barrel of a gun pressing against the underside of Q's jaw.

The pistol is what incenses him the most, the fact that it's the Walther Q replaced for Bond after he'd lost the first in Macau. He frowns when Bond makes a show of widening his eyes.

"I didn't recognise you in that enormous coat," he says, with so much contrived apology in his tone that Q can't help but roll his eyes like the child Bond still occasionally accuses him to be. Even if he hadn't been recognised at first, he obviously has been at this point, and Bond has yet to let him up.

He wonders if he's just imagining tension faintly crackling in the negligible space between them and thoroughly blames Eve for the notion even passing through his mind.

He's still wired on adrenaline, and he feels his pulse thrum fast against the cool metal of the gun. The innocent expression on Bond's face slowly, bizarrely yields to something almost tempestuous, and that's enough to throw Q off guard all over again, thoughts scattering anew.

When he does finally speak, it's with less calm than he would have liked. "Not that I don't appreciate the irony of being threatened with what is essentially _my_ gun," he begins, which is about when the crepitating tension catches fire and Bond kisses him.

Or, well. He tries to.

Q jerks back on instinct, only succeeding in cracking his head sharply against the wall, stupid, _stupid_ , and then looks back at Bond, who has put a neat meter of space between them, pistol back at his side, expression shuttered.

"No, wait," Q blurts, at the same moment Bond starts, "I apologise," and there's a beat's pause before Bond clears his throat.

"I believe I misread the atmosphere," he tries again, voice too polite, too careful.

Q is about ready to kick himself. "No, for god's sake, shut up," he says urgently, grabbing at the lapels of Bond's jacket, tugs him in hard and _there_ , lips against his own again, uncoordinated for the moment it takes Bond to get his bearings and then it's just fine, it's perfect. Bond grips his coat tight and uses the hold to push him more firmly against the wall, and Q says, "Christ, just let me—" before Bond hushes him mildly, nudges his legs apart just a bit only for his own leg to press into the space there, and Q forgets how to breathe.

His coat is pulled at to expose his neck and Bond kisses open-mouthed at the skin there, says, "I knew you'd catch up to me," and the bastard is smirking.

Q would probably have something to smart to say in return, but his mind seems to have gone out to lunch for the lack of witty comebacks it supplies. Everything that isn't Bond has gone on the backburner, all white noise he can't focus on, but eventually he regains the presence of mind to actually _do_ something that isn't standing, slack-jawed, as Bond riddles his neck and collar with what will probably turn into bruises.

He reaches up and curls his fingers into Bond's hair, just long enough to get a decent grip on, and tips his head back, uses the leverage to kiss him properly and gasps into it when Bond presses his thigh more firmly against him, rocks against it. Something has been picking at the back of his mind, and he bites none too gently at Bond's lower lip when it hits him completely: "You smell like perfume."

Bond doesn't look even remotely abashed. "I got impatient, waiting for you," he says, and Q's honestly surprised by the growl he gives in response. Bond just laughs and pulls at Q's coat again, lets him away from the wall.

"I'll ruin her," Q snaps, realises he means it, and shrugs out of his coat, letting it drop to the floor before Bond's got him against the wall once more.

"She wasn't the one doing the seducing," Bond replies, hands drifting down to Q's fly, tweaks open the button of his trousers.

"I'll ruin you, too."

"Is that a promise?"

Q would say that fucking hell, yes it is, except Bond's kissing him again and getting a hand down his trousers, and for a moment he entirely forgets what he was angry about. He figures it can probably wait. His knees go weak for a second when Bond's palms at his cock, and he scrabbles at the wall to try to keep upright. "Is that what all this has been, then?" he manages. "Have you just been baiting me?"

"You're remarkably slow, for someone who thinks himself so clever."

“Oh— _Fuck_ ,” Q gasps, with very little cleverness at all, when Bond palms him again, squeezing, firmer this time.

"I ought to have been more mindful of you during the mission," he says, apropos of nothing, and Q looks at him incredulously.

"Is now _really_ the time—?" and then he's shuddering, hips jerking helplessly—friction, _friction_ —when Bond squeezes again only to immediately pull his hand away, and he’s shaking until Bond pins him down with the full weight of his body.

"No," Bond says conversationally, watching as Q forces himself to take a deep breath and not do something humiliating like beg for Bond's hand on him again, "I suppose it isn't." Q wants to say he's been teased more than enough over the past several weeks, and that Bond is lucky he hasn't been harassed into a violent, psychotic break.

"I want to suck you off," is what comes out of his mouth instead, and though Bond's expression doesn't change much, his eyes darken and he swallows and Q can see his pulse pounding hard. He's relieved to see _some_ sort of reaction. The hands on him loosen and he reaches up to take off his glasses, fold them, and tuck them into the inside pocket of Bond's suit jacket. Then he sinks down to his knees, works at the button and zipper of Bond's trousers likely worth more than Q's entire ensemble—of course he still dresses impeccably even while on the run—and leans in to mouth at Bond's cock through his pants, feels a thrill when his hips rock forward just slightly. The noise he makes when Q tugs down the waistband of the pants with his teeth a moment later makes the silly trick worth it, and he spends a long minute sucking at Bond's hipbones, kissing along his inner thighs, and generally giving attention everywhere but his cock, flushed and big and practically straining for Q's mouth.

He's done this before, more than a handful of times, but his experience isn't anywhere near what Bond's is, and he's admittedly a bit concerned about being disappointing. But when Bond's fingers curl into his hair and he looks up, it's— Christ, Bond looks _desperate_ for it, despite obviously trying to hide it, and frankly Q is glad, because the bastard deserves a bit of teasing after everything he's done.

"Q," he says warningly, but his voice is low and rough and everything Q's ever imagined while jerking off in bed, so he dips his head again and sucks Bond proper. The fingers in his hair tighten immediately, and he hears a startled groan from above him. It's a delicious sound, from someone who always comes off as so fucking unflappable, and Q hollows his cheeks, teasing at the head of Bond's cock with his tongue each time he draws back, feels it hit the back of his throat when he takes it deep. The grip on his hair is bordering on painful, and the sounds coming from Bond's mouth go straight to his own cock, heavy and needy in the confines of his trousers despite the fact he hasn't been touched in several minutes now.

It's only when it seems as though Bond is moments from hitting his climax that Q backs off entirely, having to pull against the hold Bond still has on his hair. He takes a moment to catch his breath, and everything is blurry without his glasses, but when he looks up, Bond's expression is nothing short of annoyed—he also looks fucking _wrecked_ , or at least as wrecked as he imagines Bond can ever look, flushed and breathing hard and eyes so dark Q can barely see the blue in them.

"Should I presume this is payback for sleeping with that woman, you little whelp?" Bond asks. Amazingly, his voice is steady, if significantly lower than it had been before. Q can only assume the smile he gives in response is as patronizingly charming as he intends it to be because Bond snorts lightly, lets a hand slip from Q's hair down to his mouth, and runs a thumb slowly over his lower lip. He's admittedly more composed than Q had anticipated, given the circumstances, so he parts his lips slightly, tongue darting out to sweep over Bond's thumb.

Bond's other hand, still in his hair, tightens again when Q closes his lips over the digit and nips gently. He isn't entirely heartless, though, so after teasing Bond’s thumb for a bit, he draws back, only to duck down and go at his cock again. It's messy at this point, but the unrestrained gasp and shudder he catches is intoxicating, wiping all coherent thought from Q's mind.

When Bond comes, it's uncontrolled; he swears, low and guttural, and his hips snap forward twice, pushing his cock further down Q's throat. Despite his best efforts, Q still ends up with come on his chin and at the sides of his mouth when Bond pulls away. He thinks maybe he makes a face at that, because he hears Bond chuckle, and then he's being hauled up by the collar of his shirt.

"You're fucking _stunning_ ," Bond says, breathless, looking a bit dazed, but he licks his own come from Q's face with such deliberation that Q's breath hitches. At this point, humiliation is at the fucking bottom of his list of concerns, and he's ready to beg for Bond's hand on him, his mouth, something, _anything_ — "Easy," Bond murmurs, and Q realises he's been rutting against him like a fervid teenager who doesn't know any better.

He feels his cheeks heat, but Bond just pushes him to the wall, tugs his clothing out of the way, and jerks him off fast and steady and unrelenting, keeping a hand pressed to his chest to anchor him in place. They're both still practically fully clothed, but Q doesn't think he's ever been so hard in his life, and Bond doesn't pause for a second. There's a definite whimper working its way up his throat; he can't keep still even with Bond's hand holding him against the wall, and, and—

Climax hits like a fucking wrecking ball. Q hears himself sob with it, and still Bond doesn't let up, strokes him through the aftershocks until he's oversensitive and shuddering and, "Fuck, _fuck_ ," he breathes, can't get enough air to say anything more. He can't stay upright against the wall, so he slumps forward against Bond, whose hands come up to support him.

They stay that way for a long minute until Q eventually pulls his pants and trousers back into place, assesses himself, and comes to the conclusion that his legs are now steady enough to actually support his weight. Bond helps him make the arduous ten-step trip to the bed, where he promptly collapses face-first with a whine of exhaustion. Some tiny, rational part of his mind politely reminds him that he just had sex with a coworker and has now commandeered said coworker's bed and really, he's being very unprofessional at the moment, so he should at least sit up or clean himself off.

The far larger, sex-stupid part of mind says he's been on a wild goose chase over the past week and just sucked off Agent 007, so he'd passed the 'unprofessional' line a long time ago and ought to just roll with it at this point.

When he does finally lift his head, Bond is cleaning off his hand with a tissue from the bedside table and has apparently decided to strip out of his clothes entirely, which— Alright, that isn't entirely unwanted. Maybe he can live in denial a while longer.

Bond glances over at him and gives Q the once-over that's starting to become routine. "So," he says, and the smirk that graces his lips is wicked. "Was it good for you?"

"Piss off."

\---

Q doesn't have a predilection towards smoking, but he steals a few lazy drags of Bond's cigarette as they lie in bed, Bond propped up against the headboard and Q leaning against him. He'd briefly picked up the habit when he was younger before coming to his senses, embarrassingly enticed by smoking's apparent ability to make you more provocative. Sexier. Slightly more dead than you were before.

Like Bond, incidentally.

Q doesn't think he'll come to his senses about him.

The silence is comfortable, and it stretches languidly between them until Bond shifts and clears his throat. "I suppose this means we're going back to London now?"

"If you think I'm moving at all in the next eight hours, let alone getting on a plane, you're delusional."

He feels Bond's chuckle vibrate through them both, and it's quiet again for a long minute until Bond shifts once more.

"Just so we're on the same page," he says, and Q is amazed to hear uncertainty and hesitance in his voice, "I was wondering— Am I to expect—"

"Later," Q says, because he isn't sure of what to say, isn't sure of what Bond wants, isn't sure he wants to _know_ what Bond wants. "We'll talk about it later."

Later, Bond will coax Q into the shower, and they won't talk about it, though Q will press him to the tiled walls, steaming from the heat of the water, and touch him everywhere, take his time, familiarise his fingers with Bond's body like so much technology until Bond is shuddering with it.

Later, they will get on a plane back to London, and they won't talk about it because Q will be nodding off against Bond's shoulder to the tune of enough alprazolam to take down a horse (he'll wake up with an impressive imprint of the seam of Bond's jacket on his face as the plane touches down, and Eve will smile knowingly).

Later, Bond will take Q to dinner, and they won't talk about it, but Bond will do his best to be charming and suave and Q will refuse to take any of it seriously, so they'll leave before the main course and end up at Q's flat where he'll read Keats aloud, slow and smooth, and Bond will listen fondly until he's distracted enough to kiss the words from Q's protesting lips as the book falls to the floor, quickly forgotten.

Much later, they won’t talk about it, but Q will get two horribly tacky Christmas jumpers in the mail.

They won't talk about it, but it won't matter because it will work, somehow, for all that it's dysfunctional and unconventional.

For now, Q just takes the cigarette again and thinks, maybe he can incite Bond to bring back his gadgets in one functioning piece if he uses sexual favours as a reward.

He wonders if Bond would refuse the challenge.

He wonders if Bond would ever refuse a challenge.

It's doubtful. There's a thrill at the realisation, and Q tips his head back to regard Bond thoughtfully. Vision still fuzzy without his glasses, he sees the blurry image of Bond glance down and raise an eyebrow at him.

"Yes?"

Q smiles. "I have a proposition for you."


End file.
